What If You Died In A Year?
It’s good to be back home! My bride and I have finally had some time to acclimate to the “normal” post-wedding life after dealing with the honeymoon trauma of food poisoning. I know, I know…it’s every newlywed’s dream to travel to an earthly paradise for a week only to find yourself in the throes of a stomach bug.
It was only days earlier that I vowed to be committed to her in sickness and in health, and I certainly meant it. I just assumed the sickness wouldn’t come until much later. But, we were both sick, so I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
Even in the midst of “troubling” times—times that didn’t quite meet expectations—one can still reflect on various blessings, such as two separate trash cans in our hotel room. More importantly, I was thankful for the blessing of nonphysical intimacy.
When you barely have the strength to lift your head off the pillow, your mind is left to wander. In the case of me and Bethany, we used our circumstances as an opportunity to get to know each other even more. On many dinner dates or casual drives, I have often initiated a line of questions to learn something new about Bethany. I loved being a student of my fiancée, and I now love being a student of my wife.
Lying beside each other, we found a list of questions that we each posed to each other. One question in particular struck me:
Would you live your life any differently if you knew you would die a year from today?
Gone were the days of “what’s your favorite color?” and “what’s your favorite food?” (By the way, Bethany’s answers are (1) pink and (2) queso.) We moved past the basic questions after our first date (ex: How many siblings do you have?…When were you saved?…Calvinist or Armenian?)
This question was different. It was much more revealing. My gut reaction was to say how I would be much more mission-minded and focus much of my dwindling time to outreach. And, as I heard the words seeping out of my mouth, I was disgusted with myself and followed that thought down a rabbit trail, as I’m prone to do.
Believe me…I have nothing against outreach and missions. In fact, I affirm it and encourage it. It was the mindset that I had—a mindset I share with so many. We have been lulled into spiritual complacency with an attitude of “one day I’ll reach people for Christ.” Why do we have to face our impending death to light a fire beneath us?
I get it. Life gets busy with your occupation and your family and your friends and your hobbies. However, I don’t believe we get to use any of those pursuits as an excuse to delay the Great Commission. There are mission opportunities in each of our life situations. We just have to be willing to pursue such opportunities when the Lord presents them.
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[quote bar=”true” align=”center”]We have been lulled into spiritual complacency with an attitude of “one day I’ll reach people for Christ.” Why do we have to face our impending death to light a fire beneath us?[/quote]
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Honestly, each and every day we wake up with air in our lungs it’s a blessing. James 4:14 says: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” None of us are assured tomorrow, yet we act as though we’re guaranteed a lifetime. And, even a long life is short with an eternal perspective.
I believe we have a twisted view of reaching people for various reasons.
We are distracted or busy. As I have written about before, there is so much vying for our attention these days. It’s all too easy to want to watch TV after work rather than pursue a conversation with your next-door neighbor. Whether it’s our career or relationships or various pursuits, our mission outlook should not be affected by our circumstances.
We are sinning. It’s not surprising that if we’re in the grasp of sin, we’re not going to see everything from a heavenly perspective. We become jaded and our outlook is corrupted when we sin. It’s difficult to have a healthy mission perspective for those in spiritual bondage when you keep putting yourself back in the chains.
We have no sense of urgency. One of the main things I learned while playing football (and something the Cowboys offense could be better at) was to move with a sense of urgency—whether before, during, or after a play. In the same way, we need to seek the lost, recognizing that the return of Jesus is both imminent and fast approaching.
We don’t seek those who are burdened, broken, and lost. It’s highly possible that we don’t engage in missions because we are not actively seeking others. If you think that if you sit at your kitchen table people will come to you in droves, then you’re probably fooling yourself. Lives won’t be changed if we sit on the sidelines. We need to be completely engaged and seek out those who are hurting.
As a believer, I recognize the importance of missions and outreach, but I’m also guilty of deferring the Great Commission to a different time or place. It’s not acceptable, and I think it’s good to be called out in love when we’re veering off the path God sets before us.
I’m thankful for a bride that desires to know me spiritually.
I’m also thankful that the marriage pendulum has now swung back to the healthy side of things.
Z. Montgomery